Report expresses concerns over CIA, NYPD ties

NYPD worked with CIA officers in the decade after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Story highlights

Reports alleged "inappropriate CIA involvement" with the New York Police Department

Four CIA officers directly collaborated with the police

Muslims accused NYPD of unconstitutional spying tactics

The NYPD said the surveillance never produced a terrorist lead

In the decade following the September 11, 2001, attacks, four CIA officers directly collaborated with the New York Police Department to expand NYPD's counterterrorism capabilities, according to a newly disclosed report.

The investigation found "irregular personnel practices" and "inadequate direction and control" by CIA managers "responsible for the relationship."

"As a consequence, the risk to the Agency (CIA) is considerable and multifaceted," said a memo from Inspector General David Buckley to David Petraeus, who was the CIA director at the time.

"While negative public perception is to be expected from the revelation of the agency's close and direct collaboration with any local domestic police department, a perception that the agency has exceeded its authorities diminishes the trust place in the organization."

CIA agents are prohibited from taking part in domestic spying and the report's release comes in the immediate aftermath of leaks by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

The AP reported that the NYPD Intelligence Division dispatched CIA-trained undercover officers into minority neighborhoods to gather intelligence on daily life in mosques, cafes, bars and bookstores.

It said New York police have used informers to monitor sermons during religious services and police officials keep tabs on clerics and gather intelligence on taxi cab drivers and food-cart vendors, who are often Muslim.

The New York Police Department blasted the report as "fictional," at the time.

"We're proud of our relationship with CIA and its training expertise, which is in part responsible for the fact that the 11 years since 9/11 and the anthrax attacks soon thereafter mark the first decade in the last six in which there hasn't been a single casualty of a terrorist attack in New York City," he said in a statement. "Not that the terrorists have stopped trying."